The description of the place so well accords with the Peuch that bears his name, that I cannot doubt but that Sour occupied for some years the cave high up in the cliff, and only to be reached by crawling to it sideways, holding on to the rock by fingers and toes. But afterwards it was greatly enlarged to serve as a place of retreat by the peasants of the hamlet below. It consists of three groups of chambers cut in the rock, one reached by a very long, forty-round ladder, when a chamber is entered which has a hole in the roof through which, by another ladder, one can mount to a whole series of chambers communicating one with another. The face of some of these was originally walled up. A second group is now inaccessible. A third is reached by climbing along the face of the cliff, with fingers and toes placed in niches cut in the cleft to receive them.



A recess at the foot of the crag, arched above, contains three perpendicular grooves. This was the beginning of another artificial cave, never completed, begun maybe in 1453 and suddenly abandoned, as the glad tidings rang through the land that the English had abandoned Aquitaine and that the Companies were disbanded.

At the Roc d'Aucor, in the valley of the Vers (Lot), a gaping cave is visible far above where any ladder could reach and inaccessible by climbing from the top of the crag, as that overhangs like a wave about to break. Nevertheless, athwart the opening are, and have been from time immemorial, two stout beams let into the rock horizontally. Dimly visible in the depth of the cavern is some tall white figure, and the peasants declare that it is that of a man—a statue in marble, keeping guard over a golden calf.

In 1894, M. Martel and three friends, taking with them Armand, the trusty help in descending avens, pot-holes, and exploring the course of subterranean rivers, resolved on an attempt at the exploration of this mysterious cavern.

The mouth is 90 feet from the ground, and its floor is about 95 feet from the summit of the cliff, [Footnote: Martel (A.), Le Refuge du Roc d'Aucor, Brive, 1895.] which is crowned by the oppidurn of Murcens, the best preserved of all Gaulish strongholds in France, and was held by the English in 1370. The only possible way to obtain access to the interior would be from above, as the plumb-line let down from the summit fell 44 feet wide from the base of the cliff. Accordingly a rope ladder was attached to a tree on the top, and Armand descended furnished with a plumb-line, the end of which was attached to a cord. "Having descended 77 feet, he swung free in the air at the level of the transverse poles. Then he endeavoured to throw the lead-weight beyond one of the poles. He succeeded only after the seventh or eighth attempt, and was well pleased when the weight running over it swung down to our feet, as the position of the poles and the slope of the floor of the fissure did not allow it to rest in the cavern. 'Pull the cord,' shouted Armand. 'What for?' 'You will soon see. Pull'—and speedily the string drew after it one of our stout ropes. 'Now do you understand?' asked Armand. 'I have fastened my rope ladder to the cord that goes over the pole. Four or five of you pull and draw me in towards that pole, and so we shall get the better of the situation. When I have fixed the ladder to the pole you may all mount by the grand stair.'"

By good fortune that beam held firm, and first Armand got into the cave and then the others mounted from below. What made the entrance treacherous was that the floor at the orifice sloped rapidly downwards and outwards.

When within, it was seen that the posts were still solid and firmly planted in notches cut in the rock on both sides. In line with them were two rows of similar notches for the reception of beams extending inwards for about twenty feet, as though at one time there had been rafters to divide the cave into two storeys, but of such rafters none remained. The back of the cave was occupied by a gleaming white stalagmitic column that certainly from below bore some resemblance to a human figure, but the floor of the cavern was so deep in birds' nests, and droppings of bats, leaves and branches, that it was not possible at the time to explore it. This, however, was done by M. Martel in 1905, but nothing of archaeological interest was found. However, he noticed a sort of ascending chimney that extended too far to be illumined to its extremity by the magnesium wire, and he conjectured that it extended to the surface of the rock above, where was the original entrance, now choked with earth and stone.

But an investigation by M. A. Vire has solved the mystery of how access was obtained to this refuge. The beams visible from below are, as already said, two in number. The upper and largest is square, and measures seven by eight inches. The lower is nearly round and is four inches in diameter, and shows distinct traces of having been fretted by a rope having passed over it. It must have been used for the drawing up of food or other objects likely to excite the cupidity of robbers and routiers. The number of notches for beams of a floor in the sides of the cave is remarkable, but no floor can have been erected there, otherwise it would not have rotted away, whilst the two cross- beams at the entrance remain sound. The chimney supposed by Martel to communicate with the surface does not do so. Spade work at the foot of the rock revealed the manner in which the cavern had been reached. A tradition existed in the Vers valley that at one time there had been a tower at the foot of the rock, and old men remembered the removal of some of its ruins for the construction of a mill. By digging, the foundations of the tower were disclosed. It had been square and measured 44 feet on each side. It had stood about 60 feet high, and had been topped with a lean-to tiled roof resting against the uppermost beam in the cave and thereby masking it. [Footnote: "Le Roc d'Aucour," in Bulletin de la Soc. des Antiquaires de Quercy, Cahors, 1901, t. xxvi.]

A somewhat similar cave is that of Boundoulaou in the Causse de Larzac (Lozere). Although this has an opening in the face of the precipice, which is partly walled up, it can be entered from another and more accessible cave. At a considerably lower level flows a stream that at one time issued from it, but has worked its way downwards, and now gushes forth many feet below. However, apparently in times of heavy rain, the overflow did burst forth from the upper cavern, for in it were found the skeletons of a whole family that had perished on one such occasion.

At nearly 180 feet up the face of a sheer perpendicular cliff near Milau is the cave of Riou Ferrand, 45 feet below the brow of the precipice. The mouth of the grotto is partly blocked by a well- constructed wall. It has been entered from above and explored. It yields delicately fine pottery and a spindle-whorl, so that a woman must have taken refuge here, and here sat spinning and looking down from this dizzy height on the ruffians ravaging the valley below and setting fire to her house. Bones of sheep and pigs in the cave showed that it had been tenanted for some time, and tiles of distinctly Roman character indicated the period of its occupation. The only possible means of entering this cavern is, and was, by a rope or a ladder from above. [Footnote: Martel, Les Abimes, Paris, 1894.]

I was in the valley of the Cele in 1892 with my friend M. Raymond Pons, a daring explorer of avens and caves. There was one cavern in a precipice on the left bank near Brengues that showed tokens of having been a refuge, from having a pole across the entrance. M. Pons obtained a stout rope, and the assistance of half-a-dozen peasants, and was let down over the brink, and by swinging succeeded in obtaining a foothold within. He there found evident traces of former occupation. But how was it entered and left in ancient times? From below it was quite inaccessible, and from above only by the means he employed—a rope.

At Les Mees in the Basses-Alpes is a very similar cave, with two beams across fastened at the ends into the rock, which is a conglomerate, at the height of 350 feet, and quite inaccessible. They are mentioned by the historian Bartel in 1636 as inexplicable by him, and by the residents in the place.

A not less perplexing rock shelter is that of Fadarelles in the Gorges of the Tarn.

Of this M. Martel writes: "In a superb cliff of dolomitic limestone of the cirque of the Beaumes Chauds, M. l'Abbe Solanet was good enough to conduct me beneath the Baume des Fadarelles, a chasm inaccessible, at the height of something like 1770 feet in the face of the precipice, something like the openings of Boundoulaou, but much narrower.

"In it one can see three coarse beams or rather trunks of trees from which the boughs have been cut away, each about 12 feet long. As this opening might well have been that of discharge of a stream, now choked, for the Baumes Chauds and its adjoining fissures, one is led at first to suppose that water had brought down these logs that had fallen into some pot-hole. But this hypothesis is untenable, for it can be seen that these poles have been artificially pointed at each end, and that they have been made firm by cross pieces of metal, either bronze or iron. This may be the remains of a roof or a floor destined to supplement the insufficiency of the overhanging rock—and of the size of the fissure, so as to convert it into some sort of shelter. To study the matter, a ladder of nearly 50 feet would be needed (to be let down from above). In the absence of all tradition, these beams of Les Fadarelles remain a mystery. As the face of the cliff is absolutely smooth above the opening, below and on both sides, completely devoid of anything like a ledge by which access could be obtained to it, the question presents itself to one for the third time, as at Boundoulaou and at Riou Ferrand, were these cliff-dwellers in the Causses like those in the Canon of Colorado, or has the demolition of ledges by weather on these limestone cliffs proceeded with great rapidity?"

Two apparently inaccessible caves, that have been the habitation of man as a temporary refuge, and that have been explored by M. Philibert Lalande, show that there was a way in which some, though by no means all, were reached. The grottoes of Puy Labrousse near Brive, comprising five or six chambers, have isolated from the rest one that opens in the face of a sheer precipice at a considerable height above the valley. It can be entered only from behind, by a very small oval opening, preceded by a gallery very narrow, and masked at the entrance by enormous rocks, and which could be barricaded by stout beams, hollows for the reception of which are visible.

The other is at Soulier-de-Chasteaux on the Couze, an affluent of the Vezere. Here are two caverns excavated by the hand of man. The most curious is on the right bank near the top of a Jurassic cliff that is absolutely precipitous, and this also can be entered a retro. A narrow path leads to an opening very small, excavated in the vault of the cavern, through which a man could squeeze himself so as to descend into it by means of a ladder. The gaping mouth of this grotto, which is from 15 to 18 feet square, is in part closed by a breastwork of stone.

Below this cave is a very large shelter cut out square-headed in the cliff, but not deep; and this is used by the peasants of Soulier as a place for stacking their hay. Square hollows wrought in the rock show that formerly some building was accommodated to it, and the roof ran back under it. In Auvergne are many souterrains that have served as places of concealment in times of war. The Puy de Clierson occupies the centre of an area of four volcanoes. It is shaped like a bell, the slopes are covered with brushwood, and a ring of broken rocks forms the precipitous wall of the circular and flattish cap. The hill is composed of trachyte, and the upper portion is perforated in all directions by galleries and vaults that served formerly as a quarry for the extraction of stone of which the Romans formed their sarcophagi, in consequence of its powers of absorption of the moisture exuding from the bodies laid in their stone chests. The same may be said of Le Grand Sarcoui, shaped like a kettle turned bottom upwards. In some of the galleries are unfinished sarcophagi. But although originally quarries, they were used as refuges in later times. At Corent, on the Allier near Veyre-Mouton, are refuges in caves, so also at Blot-l'Eglise near Menat, which served the purpose during the troubles of the League.

Meschers is a village in Charante Inferieure, lying in the lap of a chalk hill that extends to a bluff above the Gironde. This cliff is honeycombed with caves, excavated perhaps originally as quarries, but several certainly served as habitations; the several chambers or dwellings are reached by a ledge running along the face of the cliff, but the chambers of each particular cave-house have doors of intercommunication cut through this rock. The Grottes de Meschers are said to have been used by the Huguenots at a time when it was perilous to assemble in a house for preaching or psalm-singing. But it is also quite possible that they served as refuges as well to the Catholics, when the Calvinists had the upper hand; as, indeed, they had for long. Their attempts at proselytising was not with velvet gloves, but with fire-brand, sword, and the hangman's rope. In that horrible period, exceeding far in barbarity that of the routiers in the Hundred Years' War, it is hard to decide on which side the worst atrocities were committed.



Later still, in the Reign of Terror, the grottoes may have harboured priests and nobles hiding for their lives. But now they shelter none but the peaceful dreamer, who sits there at eventide looking out over the yellow waters of the Gironde, ever agitated by the tide, at the setting sun that sends shafts of fire into these recesses—and sets him wishing that the light would reveal the details of tragic stories connected with these caves.

In the department of Ariege are a vast number of natural caverns, many of which have served as places of retreat for the Albigenses. Between Tarascon and Cabannes are some that were defended by crenellated walls, and are supposed to date from the Wars of Religion, but probably go back beyond the time of the English occupation. It is also said that the Huguenots met in them for their assemblies. In the country they go by the name of gleizetos, or petites eglises. They are found on the left bank of the Ariege. In the fourth century the Priscillianist heretics expelled from Spain settled in the mountains on the north slope of the Pyrenees, and propagated their doctrines throughout the country and among the population more than half pagan, and this explains the spread of Albigensian Manichaeism later. In 407 the Vandals, Suevi and Alani, during three years in succession swept the country, committing frightful ravages, as they passed on their way into Spain; and no doubt can be entertained that at this time the numerous grottoes were used by the natives as refuges. In 412 there was another influx of barbarians, this time Visigoths; their king Walla made Toulouse his capital, and gave over two-thirds of the land to his followers. After the battle of Voulon, in 507, Clovis took possession of Toulouse. In 715 the Saracens poured through the gaps in the Pyrenees, occupied the basin of the Ariege, and destroyed the city of Couserans. In 731 more arrived in a veritable invasion of multitudes, and ravaged all the south of France. Again the caves served their end as places of hiding. The south of France, rich and dissolute, was steeped in heresy. This heresy was a compound of Priscillianism, the dualism of Manes, Oriental and Gnostic fancies, Gothic Arianism, and indigenous superstition, all fused together in what was known as Albigensianism, and which was hardly Christian even in name. The terrible and remorseless extermination of these unfortunate people, who knew no better, by order of Innocent III. and John XXIII., presents one of the most horrible passages in history. The country reeked with the smoke of pyres at which the heretics were burnt, and was drenched with their blood. In 1244 their last stronghold, the Montsegur, was taken, when two hundred of them were burnt alive. Only some few who had concealed themselves in the dens and caves of the earth survived this terrible time. The last heard of them is in 1328, when some of the proscribed took refuge in the grottoes of Lombrive, when 500 or 600 were walled in and starved to death, as already related.

In Derbyshire are numerous caves—at Castleton, Bradwell Eyam, Matlock, and Buxton—but they are all natural, except such as are old mine- workings.

Poole's Hole, the Buxton cavern, may be traced underground for the distance of something like half a mile. It is now lighted with gas, its inner ways have been made smooth, and it is even possible for invalids in bath-chairs to enter. But it was at one time the haunt of an outlaw named Poole, in the reign of Henry IV., who made it his home, and here accumulated his stores. But it was inhabited long before his time, and proves to have been a prehistoric dwelling-place, and was later occupied by the Romans.

Reynard's Cave is high up on the Derbyshire side of Dove Dale, and the way to it is steep and dangerous. It is approached through a natural archway in a sheer cliff of limestone, about 20 feet wide and twice as high, beyond which a difficult pathway gives access to the cave itself. Near it is a smaller cavity, called Reynard's Kitchen. This cavern has undoubtedly served as a shelter, it is said, to persecuted Royalists. Here it was that the Dean of Clogher, Mr. Langton, lost his life a century ago. He foolishly tried to ride his horse up the steep side of the Dale to the cave, and carry a young lady, Miss La Roche, behind him. The horse lost its foothold among the loose stones, and the rash equestrian fell. The Dean died two days afterwards, but the young lady recovered, saved by her hair having caught in the thorns of a bramble bush. High up, among the rocks on the Staffordshire side in a most secluded spot, is a cleft called Cotton's Cave, which extends something like 40 feet within the rock. Here it was that Charles Cotton, the careless, impecunious poet, the friend of Isaac Walton, was wont to conceal himself from his creditors. On the top of Lovers' Leap, a sheer precipice, is what was once a garden where the two anglers sat and smoked their pipes. Close by is an ancient watch-tower, from which was seen Cotton's wife's beacon-fire lit to announce to him that the coast was clear of duns, and to light him home in the black nights of winter.

Thor's Cave is in a lofty rock on the Manifold River. The cliff rises to an altitude of four or five hundred feet, terminating in a bold and lofty peak; and the cave is situated about half-way up the face of the precipice. The cave is arched at the entrance, a black yawning mouth in the white face of the limestone. It is a natural phenomenon, but appears to have been enlarged by cave-dwellers. It has been explored by a local antiquary, and has yielded evidence of having been inhabited from prehistoric times.

The name of Thor's Cavern carries us back to the time when the Norsemen occupied Deira and Derbyshire, and Jordas Cave in Yorkshire does the same—for the name signifies an Earth-Giant.

In the crevices of Bottor Rock in Hennock, Devon, John Cann, a Royalist, found refuge. He had made himself peculiarly obnoxious to the Roundheads at Bovey Tracey, and here he lay concealed, and provisions were secretly conveyed to him. Here also he hid his treasure. A path is pointed out, trodden by him at night as he paced to and fro. He was at last tracked by bloodhounds to his hiding-place, seized, carried to Exeter and hanged. His treasure has never been recovered, and his spirit still walks the rocks.

At Sheep's Tor, where is now the reservoir of the Plymouth waterworks, may be seen by the side of the sheet of water the ruins of the ancient mansion of the Elfords. The Tor of granite towers above the village. Among the rocks near the summit is a cave in which an old Squire Elford was concealed when the Parliamentary troopers were in search of him. Polwheel in his "Devon" mentions it. "Here, I am informed, Elford used to hide himself from the search of Cromwell's party, to whom he was obnoxious. Hence he could command the whole country, and having some talent for painting, he amused himself with that art on the walls of his cavern, which I have been told by an elderly gentleman who had visited the place was very fresh in his time." None of the paintings now remain on the sides of the rock.

The cave is formed by two slabs of granite resting against each other. It is only about 6 feet long, 4 wide, and 5 feet high, and is entered by a very narrow opening.



CHAPTER V

CLIFF CASTLES. THE ROUTIERS

From a very early period in the Middle Ages—in fact from the dissolution of the Carlovingian dynasty—we find communities everywhere grouped about a centre, and that centre the residence of the feudal chief to whom the members of the community owed allegiance and paid certain dues, in exchange for which he undertook to protect his vassals from robbery and outrage. By the Edict of Mersen, in 847, every freeman was suffered to choose his own lord, whether the King or one of his vassals, and no vassal of the King was required to follow him in war, unless against a foreign enemy. Consequently the subjects were able to make merchandise of their obedience. In civil broils the King was disarmed, helpless; and as he was incapable of defending the weak against their oppressors, the feeble banded themselves under any lord who could assure them of protection. The sole token that the great nobles showed of vassalage to the Crown was that they dated their charters by the year of the Sovereign's reign.

As the security of the community depended on the security of the seigneur, it behoved that his residence should be made inexpugnable. To this end, where possible, a projecting tongue of land or an isolated hill was selected and rendered secure by cutting through any neck that connected it with other high ground, or by carving the sides into precipices. Like a race of eagles, these lords dwelt on the top of the rocks, and their vassals crouched at their feet.

But although the dues paid to a seigneur were fixed by custom, it not infrequently happened that the receipts were inadequate to his wants. He had to maintain armed men to guard his castle and his tenants, and these armed men had to be paid and kept in good humour. The lord accordingly was disposed to increase the burdens laid on his serfs, and that to such an extent as to drive them into revolt. He on his part was not unaware of the fact that he held a wolf by the ears, and his impregnable position was chosen not solely as a defence against foreign enemies, but also against his rebellious vassals.

The village of Les Eyzies is dominated by the ruins of a castle of the tenth or eleventh century, that was restored in the fifteenth, when a graceful turret was added. The keep is planted on a precipitous rock, and rises to the overhanging roof of chalk that is pierced with rafter- holes for the reception of roof beams, and with openings only to be reached by ladders leading to caves that served as storehouses. At the junction of the Beune with the Vezere, a little further down is a rock standing by itself, shaped like a gigantic fungus. This is called the Roche de la Peine, as from the top of it the Sieur de Beynac, who was also lord of Les Eyzies, precipitated malefactors. But under that designation he was disposed to reckon all such as in any way offended him. In 1594 the Sieur, to punish two of his peasant vassals who had committed a trifling offence, killed one, and dragged the other over stones, attached to the tail of his horse. This act of barbarity roused public indignation, and a deputation waited on the seneschal of Perigord to demand retribution. But having received no satisfaction from this officer, in 1595, the peasants took the matter into their own hands, revolted and besieged the castle. As they failed to take it, they turned on the property of the seigneur, tore up his vines, cut down his woods, and burnt his granges.

The incessant wars that swept France, its dismemberment into duchies and counties and seigneuries, practically independent, and above all the English domination in Guyenne for three hundred years, enabled the petty nobles to shake off the very semblance of submission to their liege lords, and to prosecute their private feuds without hindrance. After Poitiers, 1356, and the captivity of King John, anarchy reigned in the land; bands of plunderers ranged to and fro, threatening persons and ravaging lands; and the magistrates could not, or would not, exercise their authority. Local quarrels among rival landowners, the turbulent and brutal passions of the castle-holders, filled the land with violence and spread universal misery, from which there seemed to be no escape, as against the wrongdoers there was no redress. After the Treaty of Bretigny in 1360, Aquitaine ceased to be a French fief, and was exalted in the interests of the King of England into an independent sovereignty, together with the provinces of Poitou, the Saintonge, Aunis, Agenois, Perigord, Limousin, Quercy, Bigorre, Angoumois and Rouergue, greatly to the dissatisfaction of the people, who remonstrated against being handed over to a foreign lord. Charles V. and Charles VII. sought on every available occasion to escape from its obligations, and the towns were in periodic revolt. William de Nangis says of the condition of the country under Charles V.: "There was not in Anjou, in Touraine, in Beauce, in Orleans, and up to the very approaches of Paris, any corner of the country that was free from plunderers. They were so numerous everywhere, either in little castles occupied by them, or in villages and the countryside, that peasants and tradesmen could not travel except at great expense and in mighty peril. The very guards told off to protect the cultivators of the soil and the travellers on the highways, most shamefully took part in harassing and despoiling them. It was the same in Burgundy and the neighbouring countries. Some knights who called themselves friends of the King, whose names I am not minded to set down here, kept brigands in their service, who were every whit as bad. What is more strange is that, when these ruffians went into the cities, Paris, or anywhere else, everybody knew them and pointed them out, but none durst lay hands on them."

The condition of Germany was but little superior to that of France. The central authority, if that can be called central which was always shifting its position, was unequal to restrain the violent. Its pretensions were in inverse proportion to its efficiency. The Emperor was too far off to see to the policing of the Empire, too weak to enforce order; and his long absences in Italy left the German lords and lordlings to pursue their own courses unrestrained. When the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa visited the Baron van Kingen in his castle near Constance, the freiherr received him seated, because, as he said, he held his lands in fee of none but the sun. Although he was willing to receive the Emperor as a guest, he refused to acknowledge him as his lord. If this was the temper of the petty nobility in a green tree, what must it have been in the dry. After that the great houses of Saxony and Swabia had been crushed out by the policy of the Papacy, it was to the interest of the electors to keep the Emperor weak; and the fact that the Imperial Crown was elective enabled the electors to sell their votes for extended privileges. At last, against the raids of the petty nobles, whom the Emperor could not control, the cities leagued together, took the matter in hand, attacked the fortresses, levelled them and gave to the inmates short shrift, a halter and a tree. In Italy the towns proceeded in a less summary manner. Surrounded as they were on all sides by a serried rank of castles, where the nobles held undisputed sway over their serfs and controlled the arteries of trade, the cities were compelled to proceed against them; but instead of sending them to the gallows, they contented themselves with forcing them to take up their residence within the town walls. But though the feudal lordship of these nobles had been destroyed, their opulence, their lands, the prestige of their names remained untouched, and in place of disturbing the roads they filled the streets with riot. They reared in the towns those wonderful towers that we still see at Bologna, San Gemigniano, Savona, &c. "From the eighth to the thirteenth century," says Ruskin, "there was little change in the form;—four- square, rising high and without tapering into the air, storey above storey, they stood like giants beside the piles of the basilicas and the Lombardic churches... their ruins still frown along the crests of every promontory of the Apennines, and are seen from far away in the great Lombard plain, from distances of half a day's journey, dark against the amber sky of the horizon." [Footnote: Lectures on Architecture, 1853.]

I propose dividing my subject of cliff castles into four heads:—

1. Those that were seigneural strongholds. 2. Those that with castle and town occupied a rock. 3. The fastnesses of the routiers, the Companies in the Hundred Years' War. 4. Outpost stations guarding fords, roads into a town, and passes into a country.

And I shall begin with No. 3—The Castles of the routiers.

The face of a country is like that of a woman. It tells the story of its past. The many-windowed English mansion sleeping among turfy lawns to the plash of a fountain, and the cawing of rooks in the beechwood, tell of a tranquil past life-record broken only by transient unrest; whereas the towers on the Continent with their meurtrieres and frowning machicolations, bristling on every hill, frequent as church spires, now gutted and ruinous, proclaim a protracted reign of oppression and then a sudden upheaval in resentment and a firebrand applied to them all. The old English mansion has its cellars, but never an oubliette, its porch-door always open to welcome a neighbour and to relieve the indigent. It was not insulated by a dyke, and its doors clenched with a portcullis. The spoils of the chase were not a drove of "lifted" cattle taken from a peasant left stark upon his threshold, but foxes' masks and the antlers of deer. The pigeons coo about the English gables and the peacock dreams in the sun on the balustrade of the terrace, as in past centuries, but the castle of the French noble and the burg of the German ritter are given over to the bats and owls, and are quarries whence the peasants pick out the heraldic carvings for the construction of their pig-styes.

Nowhere did tears so stain and furrow the face of the land as in that portion of France that was ceded to England. De Quincey says: "Within fifty years in three pitched battles that resounded to the ends of the earth, the chivalry of France had been exterminated. Her oriflamme had been dragged through the dust. The Eldest Son of Baptism had been prostrated. The daughter of France had been surrendered on coercion as a bride to her English conqueror. The child of that marriage, so ignominious to the land, was King of France by the consent of Christendom; that child's uncle domineered as regent of France; and that child's armies were in military possession of the land. But were they undisputed masters? No!—under a perfect conquest there would have been repose; whereas the presence of the English armies did but furnish a plea, making strong in patriotism, for gathering everywhere of lawless marauders, of soldiers that had deserted their banners, and of robbers by profession. This was the woe of France more even than the military dishonour." [Footnote: Essay on Charles Lamb.]

The Hundred Years' War, that has left ineffaceable traces in the south of France, began in 1336 before the conclusion of the Treaty of Bretigny, which was in 1360, and it lasted till 1443—over a century, though not without interruption; and it desolated the fields of Perigord, Quercy, and to a less degree Rouergue and the Limousin, and wrought havoc to the gates of Paris.

The close of the fourteenth century saw no hope anywhere, only gathering storms. In France, to the prudent Charles V. succeeded the mad fool Charles VI. In England the strong King Edward III. was followed by the incompetent Richard II. In Germany the Emperor Charles IV., a statesman, had as his successor the drunken sot Wenceslas. In England the Wars of the Roses were looming in the future. Agincourt proved more disastrous to England than to France. There was hopeless turmoil everywhere. As Luther said when a somewhat similar condition existed in Germany—"God, tiring of the game, has thrown the cards on the table." In France the free Companies ran riot unrestrained. About them one word.

The engagement of mercenaries in the war between England and France had begun early. As Michelet says: "The population of the North saw appear among them mercenary soldiers, the routiers, for the most part in the service of England. Some came from Brabant, some from Aquitaine; the Basque Marcader was one of the principal lieutenants of Richard Coeur-de-Lion. The mountaineers of the South, who to-day descend into France and Spain to gain a little money by huxtering, did so in the Middle Ages, but then, their sole industry was war. They maltreated priests as they did peasants, dressed their wives in consecrated vestments, beat the clergy, and made them sing mass in mockery. It was also one of their amusements to defile and break the images of Christ, to smash the legs and arms, treating Him worse than did the Jews. These routiers were dear to the princes precisely on account of their impiety, which rendered them insensible to ecclesiastical censures." [Footnote: Histoire de France, ii. p. 362. The first to introduce them was Henry Courtmantel when he rebelled against his father. On his death in 1163 they disbanded, and then reunited under elected captains, and pillaged the country.]

From 1204 to 1222 was the period of the Crusade against the Albigenses. Pope Innocent III. poured over that beautiful land in the south of France—beautiful as the Garden of God—a horde of ruffians, made up of the riffraff of Europe, summoned to murder, pillage and outrage, with the promise of Heaven as their reward. After committing atrocities such as people Hell, these scoundrels, despising the religion they had been summoned to defend, with every spark of humanity extinguished in their breasts, looked about for fresh mischief, and found it, by enrolling themselves under the banner of England; their tiger cubs grew up with the lust of blood and rapine that had possessed their fathers. Generation after generation of these fiends in human form ranged over the soil of France committing intolerable havoc. A carpenter of Le Puy formed an association for the extermination of these bands. Philip Augustus encouraged him, furnished troops, and in one day slaughtered ten thousand of them. But so long as the English claim on so large a portion of the soil of France was maintained, the bands were incessantly recruited. The French King hired them as well as the King of England. So, later, did the Popes, when they quitted Avignon, and by their aid recovered the patrimony of S. Peter.

The barons and seigneurs in the South were no better than the routiers. They transferred their allegiance from the Leopards to the Lilies, or vice versa, as suited their caprices. The Sieur de Pons went over to the side of France because he quarrelled with his wife, who was ardent on the English side. The local nobility helped the routiers, and the routiers assisted them in their private feuds.

The knights of the fourteenth century were no longer the protectors of the weak, the redressers of wrongs, loyal to their liege lords, observers of their oaths. They had reversed the laws of chivalry. Their main function was the oppression of the weak. They forswore themselves without scruple. The Sire d'Aubrecicourt plundered and slaughtered at random pour meriter de sa dame, Isabella de Juliers, niece of the Queen of England, "for he was young and outrageously in love." The brother of the King of Navarre plundered like the rest. When the nobles sold safe-conducts to the merchants who victualled the towns, they excepted such articles as might suit themselves—silks, harness, plate. A prince of the blood sent as hostage to England returned to France in defiance of treaties, and if King John surrendered himself, it was because of the ease and pleasures he enjoyed in London, and to be rid of cares. The name given to the Companies in the South was Raobadous (Ribauds)—the very name has come to us under the form of ribald, as indicative of all that is brutal, profane, and unseemly.

Among the commanders very few were English. There was the Welshman Griffith, whom Froissart calls Ruffin, who ravaged the country between the Seine and the Loire. Sir Robert Knollys, or Knolles, led a band of English and Navarrese, "conquering every town and castle he came to. He had followed this trade for some time, and by it gained upwards of 100,000 crowns. He kept a great many soldiers in his pay; and being very liberal, was cheerfully obeyed." So says Froissart. Sir Robert Cheney was another; so was Sir John Amery. Sir John Hawkwood was taken into the service of Pope Gregory XI., and sent to ravage in Italy. Bacon, a notorious brigand, may or may not have been English. The name is common in lower Brittany. "This robber," says Froissart, "was always mounted on handsome horses of a deep roan colour, apparelled like an earl, and very richly armed."

But usually the free Companies enrolled themselves under some bastard (Bourg) of a noble house in France or Guyenne. It was a bastard warfare on their side; they stood in the same relation to the regular forces that privateers do to a fleet of the Royal Navy. They paid no regard to treaties. As the Bourg d'Espaign told Froissart: "The treaty of peace being concluded, it was necessary for all men-at-arms and free Companies, according to the treaty, to evacuate the fortresses and castles they held. Great numbers collected together, with many poor companions who had learnt the art of war under different commanders, to hold councils as to what quarters they should march, and they said among themselves that, though the kings had made peace with each other, it was necessary for them to live. They marched into Burgundy, where they had captains of all nations—Germans, Scots, and people from every country—'and they agreed to disregard the treaty and to surprise towns and castles as before.' A notorious Breton captain on his deathbed said: 'Such has been my manner of carrying on war, in truth, I cared not against whom. I did indeed make it under shadow of the King of England's name, in preference to any other; but I always looked for gain and conquest, wherever it was to be had.'"

When they captured a town or castle, nominally for the English, they were quite ready to sell it to the French for a stipulated sum.

Froissart says that the Ribauds were "Germans, Brabantines, Flemings, Gascons, and bad Frenchmen, who had been impoverished by the war" (i. c. 204). He gives in one place the names of twenty of these captains, not one English. [Footnote: Robert King of Puy Guihbem was an Englishman, but an authorised governor and commander under the English crown.] In another place he enumerates ten, all French or Gascons (ii. c. 10). Among those who harassed the Languedoc, Quercy and Perigord, not a single captain was English. The Bastard de Beby, the Bastard d'Albret, Amadeu de Pons, Benezet Daguda, De l'Esparre, Menard de Favas, l'Archipretre, Bertrand de la Salle, Le Non de Mauroux, Jean l'Esclop, Nolibarba, Bertrand de Besserat, Perrot de Savoie, Ramonet del Sort, and a score more, all base French or Gascon names. "These brigands," says Lacoste, "were mainly composed of French soldiers to whom the State had been unable to pay their wages." One whole company was entitled that "des Bretons."

But it was not the captains of the Companies alone who were Gascons, French, and Bretons. The nobles throughout Guyenne were more than half of them on the English side. The famous commander who did so much towards achieving the victory of Poitiers was a Frenchman, the Captal de Buch, Jean de Greuilly, Constable of Aquitaine for the English crown. Amandeu and Raymond de Montaut, the Sire de Duras, Petiton de Courton, Jean de Seignol, the Sire de Mussidan, and many more. "Following their interests or their passions, all these nobles passed from side to side, now that of the English, then that of the French; but they preferred the English side to the other, for war against the French is more pleasant than that against the English,"—that is to say, it was more profitable. The Livre de Vie of Bergerac under the date 5th April 1381, speaks of Perducat d'Albret as "loyally French." But his loyalty lasted but for a moment. Froissart has a characteristic passage upon the Gascons that deserves quotation. After giving a list of towns and castles on the Garonne and the Dordogne, he says: "Some of these being English, and others French, carried on a war against each other; they would have it so, for the Gascons were never, for thirty years running, steadily attached to any one lord. I once heard the Lord d'Albret use an expression that I noted down. A knight from Brittany inquired after his health, and how he managed to remain steady to the French. He answered, 'Thank God my health is good, but I had more money at command, as well as my people, when I made war for the King of England, than I have now; for, whenever we took any excursions in search of adventures, we never failed meeting some rich merchants from Toulouse, Condom, La Reole, or Bergerac, whom we squeezed, which made us gay and debonair, but now all that is at an end.' On hearing this I concluded that the Lord d'Albret repented having turned to the French in the same manner as the Lord of Mucidens, who swore to the Duke of Anjou he would set out for Paris and become a good Frenchman. He did go to Paris, when the King handsomely received him; but he slunk away and returned to his own country, where he again became an Englishman, and broke all his engagements with the Duke of Anjou. The Lords of Rosem, Duras, Langurant, did the same" (iii. c. 21).

As with the captains of the Companies, so with the knights and seigneurs who fought in the South for the Crown of England—their names are for the most part French and Gascon, and not English. [Footnote: Let it not be forgotten that those who condemned Joan of Arc to be burnt were Frenchmen. The University of Paris denounced her as a heretic. Her judges were the Bishop of Beauvais, a Frenchman by birth, Jean Graveraut, Professor of Theology at the University of Paris, Grand Inquisitor of France, Jean Lemaitre, prior of the Dominicans at Rouen. Her bitterest accuser was the Canon Jean d'Estivet, general procurator, who after the execution drowned himself in a pool. The Bastard of Vendome sold her to John of Luxembourg, and John of Luxembourg sold her to the English for 10,000 francs. Charles VII. and his friends did not raise a finger in her behalf. They forgot her at once, as a thing that had answered its purpose and was no longer of use.]

The Companies formed their nests in the rocks, which they fortified, or in castles they had captured, or in such as had been abandoned by the French, from inability to garrison them. The Causse was in their possession from the Dordogne to the Lot, and Perigord to the gates of the capital. They overran Auvergne, the Gevaudan, Poitou, the Angoumois, the Rouergue and the Saintonge, to speak only of provinces south of the Loire. The Government exhibited incredible feebleness towards them. In 1379 the Count d'Armagnac, Royal Lieutenant in the south, paid 24,000 francs to one of the routiers to evacuate the castle of Carlat, and 12,500 to the Bastard of Albret for five others. In 1387 he convened an assembly of the States of Auvergne, Velay, Gevaudan, Rouergue, Quercy, &c., to debate what was to be done to rid the country of these pests. Instead of resolving on an united effort to put them down by force of arms, they agreed to pay them 250,000 francs to quit. They took the money, but remained. Every town, every village was forced to come to terms with the brigands, by means of a patis or convention to pay a certain sum annually, to save it from pillage. Should the covenanted money not be forthcoming to the day, the place was sacked and burnt.

At length the inhabitants, unable to endure the exaction of the routiers on one side and those of the King and the seigneurs on the other, migrated to Spain and never returned. In 1415, as all the inhabitants of Caudon had crossed the frontier, the cure applied to have his cure united to that of Domme. He had no parishioners left. Domme had been reduced from a thousand families to a hundred and twenty, and these would have abandoned their homes unless stopped by the Seneschal of Perigord.

In 1434 the inhabitants of Temniac and Carlux began to pack their goods for leaving, but the citizens of Sarlat stopped them, by promising to feed them till the conclusion of the war. Some of the large towns had lost so many of their citizens that they were glad to receive peasants out of the country and enrol them as burgesses. In 1378, as the Causse of Quercy was almost denuded of its population and nothing remained to be reaped, the Companies abandoned it for the Rouergue, the Gevaudan and the Limousin and Upper Auvergne. Thence the wretched peasants fled to the deserted limestone Causse of Quercy and occupied the abandoned villages and farms. They obtained but a short respite, for in 1407 the Companies returned to their former quarters. Charles VI. imposed a heavy tax on the whole kingdom to enable him to carry on the war against the English. But Quercy was wholly unable to meet the demands, and the King, in a letter dated the last day of February 1415, gives a graphic account of the condition to which the land had been reduced.

"Whereas, this land, at the time when it passed under the obedience of the King of England, was the richest and most populous in all the Duchy of Guyenne, and contained the finest cities, towns, and castles and fortresses in the said duchy, which were free and quit of all taxes and imposts, and with privileges conferred on them and confirmed by the King of France when they shook off the English yoke; and the said land of Quercy, after having returned to its legitimate sovereigns, has testified to them the greatest loyalty; yet have its inhabitants been grievously injured, assailed, beaten, robbed, pillaged, imprisoned, killed, maltreated by the English in divers ways, which enemies have since taken and occupied the greater part of the finest towns and fortresses of the land; on which account the land of Quercy has since continued in a condition of mortal warfare with the said enemies for the space of fifty-five years; and this carried on without aid from us, or from any one:—This unfortunate land has resisted to the utmost of its powers and is doing so still; and it has been surrounded for long by our said enemies, and is as it were destroyed and uninhabitable, and the greater number of its towns, castles, and strongholds have become desert and wild, covered with forest and scrub, inhabited by wild beasts, with the exception of some few small places that are very poor and miserable, and though at one time they were great and rich, they have been to such an extent depopulated—partly through the war and partly through pestilences that have ensued—there are now hardly one hundredth part of the people remaining, and those who do remain are but poor labourers and men of servile class; and these are kept night and day harassed by watching against enemies, and yet are compelled to buy them off with patis and pensions, so that the greater portion of their substance is consumed in this way;—therefore, &c."



In 1450 the English were driven out of Guyenne, but a fresh attempt to recover it was made, that ended in the defeat and death of Talbot, in 1453. The Companies had then to dissolve. Out of a thousand churches in Quercy but four hundred were in condition for the celebration of divine service; many had been converted into fortresses. Most of the little towns in Upper Quercy had lost the major portion of their inhabitants; the villages were void of inhabitants. None knew who were the heirs to the deserted houses and untilled fields.

[Footnote: "Agros atque Lares proprios, habitandaque fana Apres reliquit, et rapacibus lupis, Ire, pedes quocunque ferent,"

—HORACE, Epod. Od., 16.]

An emigration from Limousin and the Rouergue was called for to repeople the waste places. Grammat, that had been a thriving town, in 1460 was left with only five inhabitants, Lavergne with but three. Lhern, once a flourishing place, was absolutely desert, the fields covered with briars and thorns, not one house tenanted, and in the church a she-wolf had littered her cubs.

Throughout the country can be distinguished the churches built when the war was over—quadrangular structures, without ornament.

Two of the strongest fortresses held by the English in Perigord were Bigaroque and the Roc de Tayac. The former belonged to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, staunch in his adhesion to the English cause, and he placed a garrison in it. The French did not attempt a siege, but in 1376 they raised a large sum in the neighbourhood and bought the garrison out. Either they culpably neglected to place troops in it, or were too weak to do so, and in 1386 the English reoccupied it without a blow, and made it a centre whence they pillaged the country up to 1408. In 1409 the Constable of France, however, laid siege to it and the garrison capitulated, on condition that all prisoners taken by the French should be set free. The French then demolished the fortifications, but did this so inefficiently that in 1432 the English had again established themselves therein. It was not recovered by the French till 1443; somewhat later the Companies disbanded, and then they so completely destroyed the fortress that of it nothing now remains.

The other stronghold was the Rock of Tayac. The white cliff streaked with black tears rises to the height of 300 feet, and is precipitous. Throughout the whole length it is lined and notched and perforated, showing tokens of having been a combination of cliff caves, and wooden galleries, connecting the caves, as also of structures at the base of the crag. These latter have disappeared, having been torn down when the castle was demolished, but the indications of the roofs remain. There were several storeys in the fortress. In one cave is a stable reached by a ladder, also a well that was driven from an upper cavern through the roof of the stable and through its floor to the level of the river. The oven of these freebooters hanging in mid-cliff remains, guard-rooms are still extant, and the principal upper storey is now turned into a hotel, as already mentioned, but in so doing the stable has been injured and the well filled up. The hotel is reached by a ladder.



From this vultures' nest the Ribauds devastated the neighbourhood and the Sieur des Eyzies on the opposite side of the river, and who was on the French side, was powerless against them. In company with the garrison of Bigaroque they surprised Temniac near Sarlat, S. Quentin and Campagnac, in 1348, but were shortly after dislodged by the Seneschal of Perigord from these acquisitions.

In 1353 they surprised the church and fortress of Tursac and the castle of Palevez. The men of Sarlat hastened to recover Tursac, bringing with them some machines of war, named La Bride, Le Hop, Le Collard, and l'Asne, that flung stones and bolts and pots of flaming tar and sulphur. They managed to drive the English out of Tursac, but were unable to recover the other castle.

In 1401, at the solicitation of the Baron of Limeuil, they took and utterly destroyed the town and castle of La Roche Christophe, as shall be related in full in the sequel. On 4th December 1409, the Constable of France having ruined Bigaroque, besieged the Rock of Tayac, and it was taken after a gallant defence on 10th January 1410, demolished and reduced to the condition in which we see it now. Then a tax was levied throughout Perigord to pay for the cost of the sieges of Bigaroque and the Rock of Tayac.

We will now pass from Perigord to Quercy. Here the English Companies held the valley of the Lot from below Capdenac to the gates of Cahors, except the impregnable towns of Cajarc and Calvignac.

Flowing into the Lot at Conduche is the river Cele that descends from Figeac. This river was also in the grip of the English.

Below Figeac the limestone precipices first appear at Corn, and the cliff is full of caves in which there are remains of fortifications. The cliff is not beautiful, but is wondrous strange, white, draped with fallen folds of stalactite, black as ink, as though a tattered funeral pall had been cast over it. Corn was a feof of the family of Beduer, one of the five most powerful in Quercy. In 1379 Perducat, the Bastard of Albret, an English Captain, occupied Corn, but sold it to John, Count of Armagnac, Seneschal of Quercy; after having marched out and pocketed his money, he turned round, marched in again, and set to work to fortify the caves. He made the citizens of Cajarc contribute to the expense of this proceeding, and even required them to send masons to assist him in the work; but as they were loyal subjects of the French King they demurred at this, and he substituted additional money payment for personal service. He then pushed down the Cele valley to Cabrerets near where it debouches into the Lot, and in 1383 he fortified the caves of Espagnac, Brengues, Marcillac, Sauliac, and built the chateau du Diable at Cabrerets. The Count d'Armagnac sent troops to dislodge him, but failed.

In the rock of Corn, a little higher up the river than the village, is the Grotto du Consulat, reached by a path along a narrow ledge. To this the villagers were wont to gather to elect their magistrates without interference from the Bastard of Albret. Within is a bench cut in the rock, and the roof is encrusted with stalactite formations like cauliflowers. Immediately above the village is a much larger cavern 72 feet high and 36 feet deep. It is vaulted like a dome, and tendrils of ivy and vine hang down draping the entrance. Violets grow in purple masses at the opening, and maiden-hair fern luxuriates within. At the extreme end, high up, to be reached only by a ladder of forty rungs, is another opening into a cave that runs far into the bowels of the Causse, to where the water falls in a cascade that now flows forth beneath the outer cave and supplies the village with drinking water and a place for washing linen. Hard by the great entrance is another cave situated high up, and called the Citadel, much smaller, access to which is obtained by a narrow track in the face of the rock, with notches cut in the limestone to receive the beams and struts that supported a wooden gallery which once provided easy access to the cave. I did not myself climb up and investigate the citadel, not having a steady head on the edge of a precipice, and what information I give was received from the cure, who seemed very much amused at my shirking the scramble, and thought that the Englishman of to-day must be very different from the Englishman of the fourteenth century who crawled about these cliffs like a lizard. According to him, the cave within shows signs of having been occupied, and has in it a squared and smoothed block of stone nine feet long, at which Perducat and his ruffians doubtless caroused, as at a table.



In the village of Corn is the picturesque chateau of the family of Beduer built after the abandonment of the place by the English. It is now occupied by poor families. A little farther down the valley is the castle of Roquefort, which was also annexed by the Captain. It is near the Church of S. Laurent, where was a village that was destroyed by the Company. The church itself was blown up later by the Huguenots. Roquefort is dominated by a precipice, at the foot of which lies a huge mass of rock that has broken off from the cliff, and on this rock a castle has been erected. It belonged to the family of Lascasas. One of these fell at Resinieres in a duel with the Seigneur of Camboulet; but his adversary survived him only a few minutes, and both were buried on the spot with three stones at their heads and two at their feet. When the new road was being made their skeletons were found. The stones remain in situ.

In 1361 Cahors was in possession of the English. The bishop unwilling to recognise the King of England as his sovereign retired to the Castle of Brengues in the Cele valley that pertained to his family, the Cardaillacs, and thence governed his diocese. There he died 3rd February 1367, and his successor also occupied the Castle of Brengues. But in 1377 it was captured by an English Company under Bertrand de la Salle, and in 1380 it was held by Bertrand de Besserat, to whom it was delivered over by Perducat d'Albret.

There are two very remarkable castles at Brengues; both were fortified by Perducat and Besserat. One hangs like a swallow's nest under the eaves of the overhanging rock, and is now wholly inaccessible, so much so that it is in perfect preservation. The river flows far below, and a talus of rubble runs up to the foot of the cliff, along which talus, on a narrow terrace, is a path. This path was defended both above and below the castle by gates that were battlemented and to which guard-rooms were attached. The pensile castle is not large. It was entered at one side, and has in its face three roundheaded windows.

The other castle of Brengues is perforated in an angle of rock, at a great elevation, and consists of several chambers. The cave at the angle was walled up and furnished with doorway and windows.

Near where the Cele flows into the Lot is the little town of Cabrerets. Here the precipice of fawn-coloured limestone overhangs like a wave, curling and about to break. On a ledge under it, and above the river and the road and the houses, is the Devil's Castle, built by Perducat d'Albret and Bertrand de Besserat. The latter held it from 1380 to 1390, but then, at the entreaty of the neighbourhood, the Seigneur Hebraud de Saint-Sulpice at the head of levies laid siege to the castle and took it.

The castle has one of its walls of rock; only that towards the river and the two ends are structural, as is also a round tower. A portion of the castle has been pulled down; it has served as a quarry for the houses beneath, but a good deal still remains. The tower is about 20 feet in diameter. The entrance hall, lighted by windows, is 70 feet long and 40 feet wide. A second hall, partly hewn out of the rock, with recesses for cupboards and seats and with fireplace, is 42 feet long. The oven remains in a ruinous condition. The castle is reached by steps cut in the rock.



Below Conduche, where the Cele enters the Lot, the road runs under tremendous precipices of orange and grey limestone, in which the track has been cut; and the road would be totally blocked by a huge buttress split down the middle had not a tunnel for it been cut. As the Roman road ran this way, the original tunnel was made by the Masters of the World, but it has been widened of late years. Commanding the road and the tunnel, planted in the cleft of the rock, is a castellated structure, that also owes its origin to the captains who fortified the Cele caves.

None could pass up or down the road without being spied and arrested, and made to pay toll by the garrison of this fort. [Footnote: So early as the eleventh or twelfth century there was not a small river, as the Cele and the Aveyron, on which tolls were not levied.]

The Cahors Chronicle says of this period: "Deinde fuit in praesenti patria mala guerra. Anglicis et Gallis hinc inde repraedentibus, unde evenit victualium omnium maxima caristia. Nullus civis Caturci villam exire erat ausus, omnia enim per injustitiam regebatur." If the merchants and provision wains for Cahors were not robbed at the Defile des Anglais, they were subjected to toll. The interior of the chasm reveals a whole labyrinth of passages and vaults dug out in the heart of the calcareous rock. The chambers had openings as windows looking out upon a river, and the rock was converted into a barrack that could accommodate a large garrison.

The last of the rock fastnesses of the routiers that I purpose describing is of a totally different character from the rest. It is at Peyrousse in the Rouergue, in the department of Aveyron. Peyrousse is a village, but was once a fortified town on a height, with its church and church tower standing on the highest point and visible from a great distance. It rises above a deep valley or ravine. The houses are all old, and many of them in ruins. The church, dating from 1680, is not ineffective; there are, however, the ruins of a Gothic church farther down the hill. One of the embattled gates of the town is still standing, as well as a tower erroneously supposed to be the bell tower of the ruined church, actually part of the fortification of the place. Projecting from the side of the hill on which stands Peyrousse, partly attached to it, but for the most part detached, is a ridge of schist starting 300 feet above the stream below, in one sheer precipice, and precipitous on every side. It is perhaps 300 feet long, and rises like a blade of an axe; at each extremity of this ridge is a lofty tower— one, the farthest, open at the side. To erect these towers it must have been necessary to level a portion of the sharp edge on which they rest. Between them one could walk only with a balancing pole like a tight- rope dancer, as there is a sheer fall on each side. The rock is called Les Roches du Tailleur, as having been appropriated by a captain who cut folk's coats according as he wanted the cloth. How the builders climbed to this height, how they managed to carry up their material, and how they achieved the building of these towers, is impossible to conjecture. The tradition is, that when the English quitted Peyrousse they destroyed the means of ascent, and since 1443 no human being has been able to climb the rock and visit the towers, that for nearly five hundred years have had no other denizens than ravens and jackdaws. But that is not all the puzzle of the Tailor's Rock. It is supposed that there was a wooden castle between the towers. There is no indication of there having been a stone structure.



But if so, how was it balanced, or how secured? A plank cast across the blade would make a see-saw for an ogre and ogress, till cut through. I endeavoured with a glass to see whether notches had been hacked in the schist to receive stays, and others on the ridge to accommodate joists, but could distinguish none.

Peyrousse became a Calvinist stronghold in the Wars of Religion, when the churches were destroyed; but the Huguenots made no attempt to climb the Tailor's Rocks and restore the castle. At the foot of the crags are the remains of the chapel of the garrison. How did they descend to it and mount again? I presume by a knotted rope.

A cliff castle that bears a curious resemblance to Peyrousse is Trosky, in Bohemia, but in this latter case the rocks are of basalt, and between the two towers the connecting rock forms a deep depression. In 1415, Johann von Herzmanmiestetz and Otto Berka of Trosk sacked the monastery of Opatowitz, butchered most of the monks, tortured the abbot so that he died a few days later, and carried off all the plunder they could collect. With the spoil Otto Berka built a castle on the two spires of rock, a tower on each, and connected them with a crescent wall, and a gallery of communication. The walls were six feet thick, and the foundations clamped to the rock with iron. He also contrived a tunnel, cut in the rock to the bottom, to enable himself and his men to ascend and descend. In 1424, however, Otto Berka was there no more. The castle was besieged by the terrible one-eyed Hussite commander, Ziska with the Flail, and he succeeded in capturing the lower tower after great loss of life, but entirely failed to take the upper donjon. After the departure of Ziska the castle was taken as a residence by Margaret, widow of Otto Berka, who secured the lower tower, and her granddaughter Barbara occupied the higher. These women hated each other as poison, and to personal hate was added religious rancour, for Barbara had embraced the party of the Utraquists. The theological quarrel was simply about the use of the chalice at communion. The Roman Church had withdrawn it from the people; the Utraquists asserted their right to it; and about this question the two parties fought and slaughtered each other, and burnt towns and castles. The tradition is that all day long, and part of the night, the two women screamed abuse at each other from their several towers, and desisted only for their meals, their devotions, and necessary sleep. Folk passing along the highway would halt and listen to the yelling and vituperation of the two shrews. Each had her own chapel at the foot of the cliffs, in which each ostentatiously followed the rite of which she approved; and to this day the chapels remain. According to the local story, the cries of the women were so strident and so continuous that all birds were scared away from Trosky. At length Margaret died, and Bertha had become so accustomed to scolding at the top of her voice, that she died soon after from dissatisfaction at having lost the object of her abuse.

In 1468 Trosky was the property of William von Hasenburg, who sided with King Mathias against George Podjebrad. After the defeat of Mathias, Podjebrad captured Trosky, but as the owner came to terms, he was allowed to retain his castle. The towers are all that remain of the castle; the curtain wall has been broken down. The lower tower can be reached by a climber with a steady head, but not without risk of life. The higher tower is quite inaccessible. From the height a magnificent prospect is obtained, with Prague in the distance.

To return once more to the routiers.

Near Mont Dore is the Roche de Sanadoire, 3660 feet high, composed of phonolith and basaltic prisms. On the top stood the fortress of the routiers, calling themselves English, under a Captain Chennel, from 1378 to 1386, when he was caught, conveyed to Paris, and broken on the wheel. It is not to be wondered at that the memory of the terrible times of the English domination, and its consequence, the reign of the routiers, should linger on in the memory of the people; that every cliff castle should be a Chateau des Anglais, or a Chateau du Diable—they mean the same thing. The peasant reads but little—history not at all; but Jean Bonhomme looks up at the cliffs and finds the story of the past graven there; and just as the twinge of a corn is still felt after the foot has been amputated, so—though the English rule has passed away, three hundred and fifty years have intervened—he still winces, and curses the haunts "de ces cochons d'Anglais," though in fact ces cochons were his own compatriots, doubled-dyed in iniquity, as traitors to their country and their King.



CHAPTER VI

CLIFF CASTLES—Continued

I took the third of the classes into which I have divided my subject of cliff castles, first of all; and now I shall take the others in the category.

The Seigneurs were not greatly, if at all, to be distinguished from the Captains of the routiers in their mode of life and in their fortresses, save only this, that the latter were elected by their followers, and the former were on their hereditary estates and could demand the services of their vassals. In the matter of scoundreldom there was not a pin to choose between them. But the routier chiefs were not tied to any one castle as their home; they shifted quarters from one rock to another, from one province to another as suited them, whereas the seigneur had his home that had belonged to his forefathers and which he hoped to transmit to his son.

I will give but an instance.

Archibald V. (1361-1397) was Count of Perigord. He was nominally under the lilies, but he pillaged indiscriminately in his county. Surrounded by adventurers he planted his men in castles about Perigord, and from that of La Rolphie "hung over the city like the sword of Damocles," menaced Perigueux. One little town after another was pillaged. He intercepted the merchants on the roads. At S. Laurent-du-Manoir his captains added outrage to injury, for they took all the women of the place, and cut off their skirts at the knees; and one who made strenuous resistance they killed.

In 1385, the Seneschal of Perigord, in the name of the King of France, ordered Archibald to desist from his acts of violence. When he refused, his lands were declared confiscated. But who was to bell the cat? He mocked at the sentence, and was roused to fresh incursions and pillages. At last in 1391 the Parliament acted, and summoned the Count to appear along with twenty-three of his accomplices before its bar "to answer for having overrun with his troops the suburbs of Perigueux; for having assaulted the city, and neighbouring places; for having wounded and killed a great many persons; for having incarcerated others to extort a ransom from them; for having, like common highwaymen, seized cattle, fired granges, mills, houses; and for having committed crimes so infamous, so ferocious, that one would feel pain to disclose them."

Archibald paid not the slightest regard to the summons or to the sentence pronounced against him in contumaciam. The law could not enforce its judgment, and six years later in 1397 he died. The King refused to recognise his son Archibald VI. as Count of Perigord, but Archibald disregarded the refusal, and openly sided with the English. He successfully resisted the troops sent against him, and continued in the same courses as his father. At last he was brought to bay in Montignac, where he was constrained to capitulate. He was sent to Charles VI., but effected his escape and fled to London in 1399. Thence he returned in 1404, and captured Auberoche, much about the time of the English victory at Agincourt. He died in undisturbed possession of his county of Perigord in 1430.

Few portions of France so lent itself to the requirements of the feudal tyrants of the Middle Ages, as they did also to those of the routiers, as the volcanic district of Auvergne. There the floods of lava that flowed from the volcanoes have formed caps to hills, with precipices on every side, cut through by the streams, that have separated portions from the main current. Every such peak or fragment of plateau was laid hold of by the seigneurs of old, as sites for their fortresses. From the number of these strongholds and the almost impregnable nature of most of them, the feudal tyrants of Auvergne were able to hold their own, long after the rest had been brought to their knees; and it was not until Richelieu with iron hand moved against them that their career of rapine and violence was curbed. Beginning in 1626, Richelieu ordered the demolition of all feudal fortresses that were not necessary for the defence of the frontiers, and which were a permanent menace to the King's authority, and an object of terror to town and country, and to the nobles afforded reminiscence of past lawlessness. The demolition was entrusted to the communes themselves. And in order to bring the culprits to speedy judgment, he renewed the institution of the Grand Jours; that of Poitiers in 1634 condemned over two hundred nobles convicted of exactions and crimes.

But it was impossible in many places, notably in Auvergne, for the communes to get hold of the castles and blow them up. There, for some thirty years longer, the seigneurs defied justice, and it was much the same elsewhere. On the 31st August 1665, the Grand Jours were announced for all the centre of France, but notice that they were to be held had been given so long before that the guilty were allowed plenty of time to escape out of the country, go into hiding or come to terms. Great were the expectations of the people. Right was at length to prevail over Might. The Day of Judgment was coming on the oppressors. The Mighty would be put down from their seat and the humble would be exalted in their room. A peasant wearing his cap before a noble, the latter knocked it off his head "Pick it up," said the peasant, "or the King will cut off your head." The seigneur obeyed.

But the result was disappointing. Only one noble had his head cut off. Few executions were carried into effect, many were on paper. One of the latter, a ruffian steeped in blood, defied the sentence and was banished. Flechier in his amusing and instructive book, Les grands Jours d'Auvergne, has given us a dramatic account of the trial.

Every description of intrigue was had recourse to, in order to neutralise the effect of justice. The fair ladies of Clermont, les chats fourres, as Flechier calls them, did their utmost to reduce the severity of the judges. The Great Days lasted three months, and ended in disappointment. Many of the worst offenders, convicted of atrocious crimes, entered the Royal service and fought in the armies of the King.

But if justice spared the culprits, the opportunity was accorded to destroy their strongholds, and now little remains of these Towers of Iniquity but the foundations, and some fragments of their massive walls, which were generally constructed of basaltic prisms taken from the rock that sustained the castles, laid horizontally. "Puzzolana was mixed with the mortar used in these constructions, and without the binding quality communicated by this ingredient, probably no cement would have taken effect on the smooth a rid iron surfaces of the prisms." [Footnote: Poulette Scrope, "The Extinct Volcanoes of Central France," Lond. 1858.]

The King had indeed desired that greater severity should be used. He wrote to the judges: "You must manage to banish oppression and violence out of the provinces. You have begun well, and you must finish well." At the conclusion he had a medal struck representing a slave rising from the ground, under the protection of the sword of royalty, and with the expressive device, Salus provinciarum repressa potentorum audacia.

It was, however, rather the destruction of the nests than the punishment of the Vultures that effected the work.

The Marquis de Canillac, one of the worst, escaped into Spain. He had maintained twelve ruffians, whom he called his Apostles, who catechised with sword and rod all who rebelled against his exactions. He levied taxes on necessary articles of food, and when his vassals abstained from food he fined them for not eating. He allowed none to marry without paying into his hands half the dot of the bride. His kinsman, the Vicomte Lamotte-Canillac, was the one culprit executed.

The river Vezere, opposite to the prehistoric caves of Moustier, makes a sudden bend about a wall of chalk 300 feet high and 1500 feet long. "Of all the rocks that have served for the habitation of man, this is the most striking for its dimensions and for the number of habitations it contained, if one may give that name to the excavations which the hand of man has appropriated to his use. Staircases were carved in the rock, carried half-way up the height, to where the cliff has been excavated, its recesses enlarged and divided into compartments." [Footnote: De Roumejoux, Bulletin de la Soc. Hist. de Perigord. T. xix. 1892.]

This bluff is called La Roche S. Christophe. It arrests attention at once, for half-way up it is furrowed horizontally as though worked by a giant's tool. If the visitor approaches the cliff, he will find that the masses of rock that have fallen from above, as well as others that have formed spurs, have been extensively worked to form town walls, gateways, a church, a monastery, and dwelling-houses.

One gateway, bored through the rock, has a guard-room or sentinel's watch-chamber scooped out of a pinnacle. But not a roof remains, not a living soul is to be seen in the street, not a huxter's stall in the market-place, only tiles strewn about and white rocks blackened with smoke show that man lived there.

By a flight of stairs cut in the rock, the visitor can ascend to the furrow in the face of the cliff, and there he finds that the whole has been elaborately utilised. There are chambers excavated in the chalk that were formerly closed by wood partitions, with recesses for beds, cupboards, seats—clearly the bedrooms of ladies. The grooves into which the planks were fitted can be made out. Doors were fitted into rocky rebates to move on their hinges, the hinges being round prolongations of the door frame turning in holes sunk in floor and roof. The kitchen is there, the bakehouse with its oven; the guard-room with its benches for the troopers, cisterns, store-chambers, closets, cellars, a chapel, and the latrines. All but the last are on a level in one long row, with the cliff descending precipitately from the gallery that precedes the apartments and gave communication between them and which, in part, had been widened by means of a wooden balcony and railing. The chapel, if that be the walled structure in a hole of the rock, is now inaccessible. Its destination is uncertain. The peasants so designate it.

Fragments of earthenware vessels and of tiles lie on the floors. I could find nothing else.

Above the principal gallery are others of less importance that can only be reached from the top of the cliff.

This Roche Saint Christophe has a history. It was first fortified by Frotarius de Gourdon to resist the incursions of the Northmen. He was assassinated at Mourcinez in Coursac in 991. There was a priory in the town below, mention of which is found in a charter of 1187.

The remarkable range of chambers and structures in the face of the precipice formed the castle of the family of Laroque. It was a worthy family, greatly respected in the neighbourhood, and loyal to the crown of France. The seigneur was the protector of the little town that lay below.

On Passion Sunday, 1401, the townsfolk and the occupants of the castle were gathered in the church, when a cry was raised that the enemy had swarmed over the walls and were in the town. Adhemar de Laroque was the seigneur at the time. He hastened from the church, but already the street was full of English, and escape to his castle was cut off, as they had secured the stair.

Adhemar had a personal enemy, one Jean Ducos, a kinsman of the Baron de Limeuil. These men, calculating that the garrison of La Roque would be off its guard on that holy day, arranged with the English garrison of the Rock of Tayac to surprise the town.

They came upon it unobserved, and breaking in, massacred the people and the guards; then ensued a general pillage, and a conflagration. Every house was fired after it had been ransacked, and the English Ribauds running along the platform with torches in their hands, applied the flame to everything combustible—doors, galleries, partitions, rafters —all blazed, and the only portion of the castle and town that was left unconsumed were the latrines, to which they did not consider it worth their pains to apply their torches.

From that day to this the town of La Roche Saint Christophe has been abandoned. No cottager has ventured to repair the ruined habitations for his own use; as the place is esteemed haunted, notably on the night of Passion Sunday, when a ghostly train of the dead is seen flickering in and out of the rocks and ruins by the light of the Easter moon.

But the castle was again tenanted for awhile by a band of Huguenots, who committed such depredations in the neighbourhood that on 30th March 1588, the Viscount of Aubeterre, Governor of Perigord issued orders— "as the enemies of the King occupying this Castle are doing incredible mischief to the poor folk of the neighbourhood," that they should be expelled and the castle be utterly destroyed. [Footnote: La Roche S. Christophe is mentioned in the letters of Petrarch. Labbe. Frag. Bp. Petrarchi.]



Quite as curious, and with a less tragic history is La Roche Gageac on the Dordogne, below Sarlat. "Ma chere patrie," wrote the old chronicler, Jean Tarde, "une petite ville bien close et tres forte dependant de la temporalite de l'evesque de Sarlet, la quelle ne fut jamais prinse par les Anglais."

The white Jurassic limestone dappled orange, fawn colour, and silver grey, rises 250 feet above the river, the lower portion is in terraces, very narrow, on which are the houses clinging to the rock, cramped between the Dordogne and the cliff which rises 140 to 160 feet above. The old houses are echeloned along the face of the rock, superposed the one on the other, calcined by the sun as they face south, and the rock behind cuts off all northern winds and reflects the glare of the southern sun. This explains the vegetable precocity of the spot, where wallflowers, cactus, roses, luxuriate. It would be too hot were it not for the abundant springs, and the proximity to the Dordogne down which a cool air is wafted.

The habitations are either partly or wholly caves, they do not reach half-way up the rock which overhangs to the west. In the face of the cliff are two castles built into its recesses, one pertained to the Bishop of Sarlat, and the other to the Fenelon family. Both were ideals of a stronghold in the Middle Ages, impossible to escalade or to undermine. In the fifteenth century La Roche Gageac was a walled town containing five chateaux of noble families, juxtaposed and independent of each other, although comprised within the same enclosure. Originally indeed all were under the Bishop of Sarlat, but the Popes had set the example of jobbery for the benefit of their sons and nephews, and the Bishops were not slow to follow the lead. One Bishop made over the principal castle to his brother as a hereditary feof, and others disposed of the rest for money down, so that by the second half of the sixteenth century the town had been dismembered. Although it had held out against the English, when thus broken up among several, it could not defend itself against the Calvinists, who took, burned and sacked it in 1574. They killed three Sarlat priests. It was retaken by the Royal troops in 1575, but it again fell into the hands of the Calvinists in 1588, and the wreckage of its ecclesiastical buildings dates from those two captures.

The principal castle, that which belonged to the Bishop of Sarlat, occupies one of the profound horizontal furrows in the face of the rock, that are so common in the limestone and chalk formations. It consists of three towers, two of which are square and one round, with curtains uniting them, and a gate-tower, to which a flight of steps cut in the rock gives access for a part of the way. But to reach this flight one has to mount by a series of posts serving as steps driven into sockets in the rock, with only here and there a sustaining iron bar. Below the structure are chambers, possibly prisons, but more probably store rooms dug out of the rock. In this castle one of the Bishops of Sarlat, in stormy times, lived continuously, and there died. How was his body carried down the stair? Probably it was lowered by ropes.

I cannot quit La Roche Gageac without a word on one of its most illustrious natives, Jean Tarde, born there in 1561 the friend of Galileo, and who, the first in France, five years after the great Florentine had begun to search the skies with his telescope, invented one year previously, erected his tube here at one of the openings of this eagle's nest, and during ten consecutive years pursued his astronomic studies. He was a remarkable man in many ways. He was the first to map his native Perigord, and the first to write a chronicle of the diocese of Sarlat, a valuable work for any who would compile a history of the Hundred Years' War, the first also to repudiate the accepted attribution of the dolmens as altars of sacrifice, and to indicate their true character as sepulchres. His account of the ravages committed by the Huguenots is also valuable. The year before his birth, in 1560, at Lalande, the Calvinists got into the town through a hole in the wall, killed the first Consul, the Vicar, and six other priests, and massacred a hundred of the inoffensive citizens. Sixty took refuge in the church. The Calvinists forced such as could to ransom their lives, and slaughtered such as were too poor to do this. He was but six or seven years old when the Huguenot captain, the Sieur d'Assier, took La Roque, "killing the priests and burning the churches." He was aged twelve when Captain Vivant took Sarlat, suppressed the bishopric, and killed three of the canons and several of the citizens. At La Chapelle- Faucher in 1569 the heretics drove 260 peasants into the castle and massacred them all. He was made Vicar-General to the Bishop of Sarlat, and it was after having made a tour of the diocese in 1594 that the idea occurred to him to write the history of his country and repair as far as possible the loss of so many of the archives that had been burnt. In 1599 he was made honorary chaplain to Henry IV., and in 1626 was published his Description du pais de Quercy. His history of Sarlat, after remaining in MS. was at length published in 1887, but only 150 copies were printed. Happily one is in the British Museum, and I possess another.